Slowly, Then All At Once
by creating-not-finding
Summary: ONESHOT-SPITFIRE. Just a little detail about how Wally fell in love. You'll especially like it if you're a John Green fan.


He read a line in a book once that pretty much summed it up. "I fell in love the way you fall asleep. Slowly at first, then all at once." It was kind of a big deal for him because he didn't read. Okay, he read. But it was always science journals or a physicist's dissertation (yes, he was that smart) and sometimes Barry's lab reports when he was too busy or too tired to read over them himself. But he really didn't read fiction. Harry Potter had been the only exception, really, and that had started when he was eight.

He'd found it on the coffee table in the living room, just lying there. At the time, he hadn't known it was hers; hadn't known that she loved to read, and most of the nights when the rest of the team couldn't find her it'd be because she was curled up somewhere with a book. He hadn't known…but he had picked it up on a whim and started flipping through it.

The pages were worn—he'd understand why later, when she told him it was her favorite book—and by the time he'd made it past the first few, he was hooked. He read the whole thing, front to back. And when he'd gotten to that line, everything made sense.

It had started out slow. Looking back, he wasn't even completely sure when it had. Maybe the first time he'd seen her. There had certainly been attraction as early as then. She was tall, with a tan, athletic body, perfectly toned muscles in her arms and stomach, long blonde hair and full lips—not to mention a costume that would make the most honest man have dirty thoughts. Megan had been cute, sure, but as soon as those steely grey eyes pinned his own, he knew 'cute' was something that would never satisfy him.

Of course, her stubbornness (and his, he had to admit) had offset it. They were both a little insecure back then, although they dealt with it in different ways. She was sarcastic and rough around the edges, constantly challenging him. And he acted carefree and goofy, always making jokes, as quick with his comebacks as he was with his feet. In so many ways they were wrong for each other. But somehow the wrong ways were also the best ones.

Because no matter how much she pissed him off, something about her kept drawing him back, hungry for more. Maybe part of him knew it then, could already feel it growing in his bones—the desire to be near her, to hear her laugh or her husky voice, catch a whiff of the vanilla scent of her hair mixed with the leathery smell of her quiver.

He'd always been smart, even though sometimes he acted stupid. But when it came to her, he was hopelessly without a clue. When he lost her (the first time) during that hellish training exercise, it finally started dawning on him that maybe it was the real thing. He'd never felt a pain like that, in all his sixteen years. That moment, standing on an arctic battlefield inside his own mind, he learned for the first time what it felt like to have your heart ripped from your chest.

He heard a lot of the kids at his school talk about heartbreak. He knew they'd never felt anything like that.

And to be honest, it scared the shit out of him. He was the goofball, the comic relief; the guy who flirted with anything that moved, just because it was fun. He didn't do the deep stuff. Not because he didn't feel it, but because come on. In the business they were in, if you let yourself do the deep stuff, you could go insane. When it was a choice between whether to laugh or cry, he'd damned well be laughing.

He didn't want to think that maybe he was starting to mature. That his feelings were starting to get real, despite his best efforts to keep them otherwise. That the reason he thought about her all the time wasn't just because of his crazy hormones (although that might have had something to do with it, because really, the time he'd spent fantasizing about her was kind of obscene). And he sure as hell didn't want to live his life knowing that his heart was going to be ripped out every time he lost her.

So it started out slow. Mostly because of his insecurities, although he never pulled any punches when pointing out hers. Until somehow, it just happened. It happened all at once, just like the book had said—a dizzying rush of emotion within the space of a single instant that had almost left him speechless. He thinks it was when he saw her sitting in a crowded gym with a group of kids, trying to sing one of those rhyming, children songs. She'd laughed nervously when she couldn't remember the words, and smiled when the kids had laughed back. Later, when she opened up to him about her childhood, he had understood why she hadn't ever learned the song. But in that moment, all he'd understood was that he loved her. Just like that, he knew. There'd be no denying it anymore. He was hers for long haul.

And that was it, really. That had been how it happened.

Slowly at first. And then all at once.


End file.
